Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Major 'Underinsured' Sector, Pt.5 -- Here’s even more detail.

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Still, another criteria was that of foregoing necessary health care because of medical costs. The studies found a very high degree of this problem. It was compared against the likelihood of those with adequate health insurance doing the same. It turned out that the ‘underinsured’ compared very closely with those who had no health insurance at all. The percentage of ‘underinsured’ was 53% and the percentage of those without health insurance was 68%. These are people that would not seek a doctor’s help when they were sick, would not fill needed prescriptions and would not go through with prescribed treatments and diagnostic testing. Ms. Schoen assessed that “The underinsured look a lot like the uninsured."

Quality of life was another important factor. The study showed that a high percentage of this segment felt like social outcasts. They couldn’t pay their bills, collection agencies hassled them and their whole way of life had to change. 45% if the ‘underinsured’ were found in this category, while only 21% of those with adequate health insurance had this problem. Almost invariably, the inadequate health insurance holders had to pay the difference after ‘payment limits’ were applied. The report showed that 25% of those with inadequate insurance had to face deductibles over $1,000. The real ‘kicker’ is that those with the inadequate health insurance policies were paying about the same, or even more then those others who did have adequate health insurance. Could it be that they were so financially strapped that they couldn’t quit a bad job and go find a better place to work with better benefits?

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